With the increased interest in miniaturization and further in the interest of cost effective manufacturing of electrical assemblies it is desirable that the assembly consist of an insulating housing which is simple to mold using only straight action core pins, and spring contacts which are of uncomplicated structure. Preferably the spring contacts can be easily stamped and formed from sheet metal stock, without folding operations having to be performed on the stock and can be very simply loaded into the housing. In the interest of universality contact springs of the spring contacts should be identical regardless of the mode in which the assembly is to be mounted on a printed circuit board, only the contact tails of the spring contacts needing to be modified according to the mode in which the assembly is to be used. Also, the assembly should be mateable with pins of a conventional pin header without the housing of the pin header being especially configured to mate with the receptacle assembly.
Many receptacle assemblies for application to printed circuit boards are known, but none has either all of, or many of, the advantages set forth above. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,161,985; 5,199,880; 5,213, 514; and 5,224,866 all disclose receptacle assemblies for application to printed circuit boards, in which the insulating housing of the assembly is specially configured to mate with a specially configured housing of a pin header. The housing of the receptacle assembly is accordingly a somewhat complicated molding. Further, the receptacle assemblies are suitable only for one mode of mounting to a printed circuit board.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,556,267; 4,767,342 and 5,131,872 disclose receptacle assemblies for application to printed circuit boards, in which spring contacts have contact springs that require folding operations during manufacture and the receptacle assemblies are arranged only for vertical mounting to a printed circuit board. U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,396 discloses a receptacle assembly for application to a printed circuit board, in which the spring contacts are relatively simple contact springs, but in which spring contacts are secured in their housing by means of ears which are bent out of the plane of a retention portion of the spring contact and are of much greater stock thickness than the contact spring. The housing is specially configured to cooperate with the retention ears so that the spring contact is contained in its cavity in the housing. U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,163 discloses an edge connector for connecting two printed circuit boards with their edges in opposite alignment. The connector comprises two mating housings with cavities receiving spring contacts having oppositely directed contact springs each of which is located in a cavity in a respective one of the housings. Although the contact springs are of relatively simple construction, the spring contacts have no contact tails and the housings are not arranged to be mounted on a printed circuit board. U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,793 discloses a receptacle assembly for mounting on a mother printed circuit board to connect a daughter board thereto. A cavity in the housing of the assembly is configured to receive S-shaped contact springs of the spring contacts which are retained in the housing by means of barbed support portions which are lodged in grooves formed in a terminal receiving face of the housing.